An open letter to the _Guardian_ on nuclear disinformation

[I have been writing the _Guardian_ and other papers, to try to get them to stop calling nuclear a ‘low’ or ‘zero’ (!) carbon source of energy. I encourage readers to do the same! They aren’t publishing my letters, perhaps because they don’t appreciate the criticism. But how can I help but criticise, when they are so wrong on this?Here is my most recent letter:]

Why does the _Guardian_ keep publishing articles that propagate the myththat nuclear is ‘low-carbon’? (The latest is Mark Milner and David Gow,writing on Monday Jan. 26, including nuclear alongside renewables in theirarticle on the EU’s efforts to incentivise green energy.) It surprises methat so many _Guardian_environment correspondents have swallowed this uber-myth of the nuclearPR industry. Once one factors in the very substantial amount of energyneeded for mining, transporting and processing uranium, forbuilding nuclear power plants, for protecting them and their fuelfrom sabotage and accident, etc, and once one includes thevast amount of energy needed to decommission, monitor and protectnuclear waste for hundreds of thousands of years, then nuclearends up with an absolutely huge carbon footprint — and veryprobably a negative net energy balance.As David Fleming’s sadly-neglected report on this vital issue(www.theleaneconomyconnection.net/nuclear/Nuclear.pdf ) makes clear, thereal question now is whether nuclear power even has enough energy left,from its fast-depleting uranium, to clean up its own wastes, let aloneto contribute anything to our energy needs beyond that.

I call upon the _Guardian_ toengage in a public and journalistic investigation of the true carbonfootprint of nuclear.